SIGGRAPH 2004: The 31st International Conference on Computer Graphics
and Interactive Techniques

HKUST Makes Her Debut

SIGGRAPH is the most prestigious conference in the
field of Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in the world. The
conference will be held from August 8-12, 2004 in Los Angeles, California,
USA this year.

Getting a research paper published in SIGGRAPH is the dream of every
computer graphics graduate student. As far as we know, none of the local
students from any tertiary institutions in Hong Kong has ever made their
footprint in the conference. Two of our students has made their debut this
year.

Mr. Yin Li and Mr. Jiaya
Jia, PhD candidates of the Department of Computer Science,
will publish their first (as well as the school's first) papers in the
prestigious SIGGRAPH 2004. Both papers will go straight to the renowned
ACM Transactions on Graphics.

Their works were completed in Microsoft Research
Asia while they were student interns under the mentorship of
Prof. Heung Yeung Shum. Mr. Li (a Microsoft
Research Asia Fellow) and Mr. Jia are under the supervision of
Prof. Chi Keung Tang. Both of them are supported
by AoE/IT and RGC.

Mr. Jia's "Poisson Matting" formulates the problem of natural matting
as one of solving Poisson equations with the matte gradient field. By
interactively manipulating this field using a number of filtering tools,
the user can further improve Poisson matting results locally until he or
she is satisfied.

SIGGRAPH is the annual conference organized by ACM SIGGRAPH, it
provides graphic researchers, developers, creators, educators and
practitioners with an opportunity to interact, exchange and share their
expertise in the graphic world. The event is composed of a 5-day
conference and 3-day exhibition. Every year, it attracts more than 20
thousand computer graphics professionals from all over the world to gather
for a program focuses on research, art, animation, games, interactivity
and web graphics.